


heavy upon my skin

by missymeggins



Category: Haven - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-07
Updated: 2013-10-07
Packaged: 2017-12-28 17:07:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/994441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missymeggins/pseuds/missymeggins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The barn disappeared and Nathan felt numb. Truly, properly numb in a way he had never experienced.</p>
            </blockquote>





	heavy upon my skin

He needed money, he says. 

He needed money and he needed to stay off the grid, he says. 

Why else would a man - even a man who can’t feel pain - let people beat the shit out of him for money. 

It goes against all reason. 

 

 

 

(But since when has reason existed in Haven?)

 

 

 

The barn disappeared and Nathan felt numb. Truly, properly numb in a way he had never experienced. 

Before Audrey there was just the physical absence of touch and it was okay because he was used to it and he could remember, in a distant dreamy sort of way, what things felt like as a child. He had imprints of sensation, the hot sun on his face, and the icy wind off the water, and the idea of them from his memory was almost enough to make them reality. 

Life was vivid in ways that made feeling seem like a reasonable tradeoff. For Nathan the world was brighter, more auditory. He saw things, heard things in more detail because those senses weren’t muffled or dulled by physical feeling. 

(Feeling, he’s noticed, distracts people. They think it more tangible than other senses, more _real_ , and as a result they miss the smaller things.) 

His life was different but he didn’t feel numb. 

And then there was Audrey and his world continued as it always had. He saw her, heard her, more keenly than other people but it didn’t seem out of the ordinary. 

Until she touched him and he _felt_. 

After that there could be no numbness, even when she wasn’t touching him. There was always the anticipation, a sort of buzzing throughout his whole body that started in his brain but seemed to spread through him. It was an illusion of course, a trick of the mind, an imagined desire. 

But still, it was the opposite of numb. 

And when she touched him he felt _alive_. 

 

 

 

Now she’s gone and he is numb. 

Nothing else feels real. The world is dull, as though his eyes have drained all colour from it. He hears through a fog and words don’t quite reach him most of the time. 

Audrey is gone and he is just so _numb_. 

 

 

 

He needs the money, he says. 

His reflection wants to call him a liar but he doesn’t really see himself in the mirror anyway. He sees his mistakes. He sees his failures and he sees loss. His face is etched with loss and he can’t bear to see it. 

It’s easy money. What’s a few bruises, some blood to wash out of his clothes at the end of the day? Not that it ever comes out completely, scrubbing inefficiently as he does in the basins of cheap motels. 

The metaphor isn’t lost on him. He can’t make himself clean of this. 

The first blow is a surprise. Though he doesn’t feel pain, his body still recognises force and he’s not skilled at measuring it. He falls almost instantly, his head is spinning and it’s hard to get back up. 

The second he is ready for. He braces himself, feet planted firmly, muscles tensed to absorb it. He wavers but doesn’t fall. He watches their faces as their determination builds; they want more. 

(So does he.)

By the third he’s somewhere else, a place where every blow is a tortured memory. He’s saying goodbye to Audrey as she walks into a barn because she’s less selfish than he is and she knows it’s right. He’s saying, I love you inside his head and the words aren’t leaving his mouth and he can’t figure out why. 

He’s shooting Howard. He’s screaming her name as he watches the barn disappear.

They hit him until he bleeds, can barely stand. He doesn’t feel it. 

He walks away thinking, _this is what I deserve_. 

 

 

 

It makes him feel, not _better_ really - nothing can do that - but as though he’s paying some sort of penance. 

The world might think it empty; there’s no pain in this physical act but it’s not his choice that he can’t feel it. It _is_ his choice though to subject himself to this violence, to make his body the punching bag for so many other’s anger and pain. 

Every bruise, abrasion, drop of blood running down his skin is penance. His body gets broken, day after day, and it seems to satisfy the masses who buy their catharsis in this form. 

He could stop now, he doesn’t really need more money, but it’s not enough yet. They need more and so does he. 

He couldn’t save Audrey. 

He won’t ask anybody to save him. 

 

 

 

(Audrey’s gone. Who else is there to possibly save him?)

 

 

 

Time passes and he barely knows how to measure it other than by the growth of hair on his face. (He’s stopped looking at mirrors altogether by this point.)

Time passes and he starts to wonder if this is just his life now, if he’ll be stuck in this cycle forever. He can’t imagine going back and it seems impossible to go forward. 

Time passes and everything stays the same. 

 

 

 

Duke is the last person he ever expected to make him feel anything again. 

But then, he never expected to see Duke again. He’s supposed to be dead. He’s supposed to be with Audrey. 

Instead he’s holding out his hand with money ready to buy a shot at Nathan, and it’s strange because it should be a cruel joke, like tacks in his back but it’s not. Duke, in his own way, is offering him salvation; a way out of this useless penance that actually does nothing at all to absolve him of his guilt. 

He’s offering a twenty dollar bill and hope. 

Duke’s alive when he shouldn’t be. 

That means Audrey could be too. 

 

 

 

Physical feeling is overrated. 

He can’t _feel_ the embrace but its mere existence means more than the sensation ever could. He could never have imagined that the sight of Duke Crocker would prompt any feeling other than disdain or bitterness. 

But it does. He feels a smile on his face, and relief in his chest and the vaguest sense of normality. 

Duke is alive and he hasn’t given up on finding Audrey either. 

Nathan doesn’t need the money anymore.

He doesn’t need the penance. 

What he needs is to go home. 

To Haven.


End file.
